U.S. investigating Havana bombings

 BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES

 Contrary to defense claims, it has been Cuba -- not the United States -- that has dragged its feet and thwarted an investigation of possible exile-community involvement in
 a series of bomb attacks in Havana, a federal prosecutor in the Cuban spy trial asserted Friday.

 Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kastrenakes, while cross-examining a counterterrorism investigator from Havana, said the Cuban government has refused for more than two
 years to allow the FBI access to key witnesses, some of whom were convicted in the bomb cases and sit in Cuban jails.

 Cuban Lt. Col. Roberto Hernández Caballero did not disagree that witnesses have not been made available.

 But he said that the Cuban government had provided plenty of other evidence -- from names and phone numbers of suspects to samples of plastic explosives -- for U.S.
 prosecutors to press charges.

 ``Here in Miami, there was enough information to verify what we had done down there,'' said Hernández, a lieutenant colonel for the State Security Department of the
 Interior Ministry and lead investigator into some 12 bomb attacks against Cuban tourist sites in 1997.

 The five accused spies on trial in U.S. District Court acknowledge working as agents of the Cuban government.

 But they contend that they were legally justified in pursuing clandestine activities -- including infiltration of Miami exile groups -- because the United States was either
 unwilling or unable to stop terrorist acts by exiles.

 NOTES AND VISITS

 But Kastrenakes said that U.S. authorities sent Cuba five diplomatic notes over more than a year seeking a meeting about the bomb attacks.

 FBI Agent Agustín Rodríguez and Miami-Dade Police Detective Luis Rodríguez finally were allowed to visit Havana in June 1998.

 In March 1999, Hernández and his colleagues traveled to Washington, where they toured the FBI crime laboratory and were given the results of an analysis conducted on
 some evidence from the bombs.

 The law officers told Hernández ``they had actually opened an investigation into the bombings,'' and gave him a two-page list of interviews and physical evidence they
 needed in Cuba to complete their case, Kastrenakes said during questioning.

 While the officials were not allowed to interview witnesses, they did return to Havana for other work in October 2000, Hernández disclosed.

 Kastrenakes suggested retaliation was the reason for the delay.

 He said Hernández's boss told the American law officers in October that ``the reason they had not been brought back to Cuba'' was because the five men now on trial had
 been arrested. Hernández said he did not hear his boss say that.

 The spy-case arrests took place on Sept. 12, 1998.

 NAMING NAMES

 On Thursday, Hernández -- who was under heavy protection from federal marshals -- had testified that people living in the United States were responsible for plotting and
 financing the bomb attacks. He named names Friday, reiterating a list of suspects whom Cuba has blamed.

 They are the Cuban American National Foundation; Alpha 66, a militant exile group; the Cuban-American Veterans Association; and Ex-Club, a group of former Cuban
 political prisoners. The CANF has denied any involvement in the bomb attacks.

 Hernández also named Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, a CIA-trained explosives expert who has claimed responsibility for the bombings. Posada linked the bombings
 to CANF at one point, but ultimately denied that the foundation was involved in the plot.

 Posada is now imprisoned in Panama in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Fidel Castro.

 `NO TERRORIST ACTS'

 At another point, Kastrenakes asked Hernández if he knew whether Cuba's intelligence directorate -- the government branch that directed the co-defendants in their
 missions -- ever sponsored terrorist acts.

 Hernández's answer -- ``My government does not sponsor terrorist acts'' -- sparked loud laughter from Mirta Costa and other survivors of four Brothers to the Rescue fliers
 whose planes were shot from the sky by Cuban fighter pilots on Feb. 24, 1996. Costa's son, Carlos, was among the dead.

 At defense attorney Joaquín Méndez's request, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard told spectators to quiet down.

 Hernández completed his testimony and the trial broke until April 10. Testimony is expected to continue until May, according to the lawyers' timetable.

 Hernández testified that he and the Cuban government were concerned for his safety. The U.S. Marshals Service prohibited a sketch artist from drawing his picture in the
 courtroom Friday.
                                    © 2001